“The whole project took a few months, but on an annual level the project yielded cost savings in the amount of 700 000 euros,” says Tuomo Niemi , Director, Technical Customer Service at Metsä Fibre. The services offered by Metsä Fibre also allow customers to improve the quality of their end products. For example, a customer may aim to maximise the stiffness of the paper- board they manufacture and need data on how to change the product’s structure during its production phase. A refining audit will facilitate the change and the opti- misation of the product’s structure. In the audit, the re- fining result of the customer’s current pulp recipe will be analysed with the FORE tool. This provides recommenda- tions on how to improve the refining process in such a way that the strength of the paper or paperboard is retained or improves, while taking energy efficiency into account. In other words, a refining audit aims to ensure that the customer’s refining process functions at its best. “When the refining process is optimal, you can reduce the use of softwood pulp. Our technical services are there to ensure that our customers use softwood pulp as energy and cost-efficiently as possible, regardless of whether they manufacture paper or paperboard,” says Niemi. The technical customer service specialists may also sit in the conference rooms with the customers, examining the differences between forest certificates and their impact on forest management or, say, the price of pulp. When
A refining audit aims to ensure that the customer’s refining process functions at its best.
Tuomo Niemi Technical Customer Service Director of Metsä Fibre. He is leading a team of 10 highly skilled professionals on in EMEA and ASIA.
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